Brenda Novak - Come Home to Me

“I’m not worried about that so much as I am about you.” Sitting down next to him, she rubbed his back, trying to soothe him. “What got you so upset?”

“Aaron infuriates me. You know that.”

“But you can usually cope with it. What did he say or do to set you off tonight?”

His beard growth rasped as he rubbed a hand over his jaw. “I was trying to tell him to stay away from Presley, and he got belligerent, as he always does.”

The guilt she’d been feeling burrowed a little deeper. “Don’t fight with your brother over Presley. That makes me feel I’m the one who dragged you into it, because I’m so concerned about her.”

“There’s no need for him to screw up her life. If he loved her and was willing to step up and marry her, I wouldn’t feel like this. But...he doesn’t want anything she’s got to offer. Not now. She has a kid, and that’s entirely too much responsibility for him.”

Dylan adored Wyatt, felt protective of him. “Are you sure? That Aaron’s not ready for—” the way he looked at her made her adjust what she was about to say “—for someone who might be interested in a more serious relationship?”

“Hell, no. He’s never been able to maintain a serious relationship. What makes you think he could start now? I wouldn’t want him to get involved with Presley again, anyway. That’s all we need. You know how volatile he is, how their relationship could potentially affect ours.”

But Aaron wouldn’t ask permission. No one could tell him what to do; no one could make him see reason if he didn’t want to. If Dylan tried to step in, to influence him, Aaron could do exactly the opposite just to prove his autonomy.

“It’s too bad that she had to come back before he left,” Cheyenne lamented.

“I’d rather have her here in Whiskey Creek than depending on people she can’t trust to take care of Wyatt.”

Dylan had been as livid as she was when Presley found those marks on Wyatt. The owner of the thrift shop had let her bring Wyatt to work three days a week, but she still had to leave him on the weekends, because it was busier, and when she went to massage school at night.

“I agree Wyatt’s better off here,” she said, “but...”

“What?” he prompted.

But he didn’t know nearly as much as she did. “Having the two of them in town for even a month is too long.” She gave him a rueful smile as she checked his hand. He’d bruised and scraped his knuckles. “Do we need to take you to the hospital? Have that X-rayed?”

He shook her off. “No. It’s not broken.”

“You’re sure?”

“Positive. I’ve broken it often enough to know the difference.”

She mussed his hair. Although he was as tough as a man could be, there was a childlike innocence in the way he cared for her that formed the foundation of her happiness. “I love you so much, too much. Even when you punch holes in my wall.” She stood up. “Let’s wash off your hand before you get blood on the couch.”

“Chey?” He caught her wrist, pulling her back to him.

“Yes?”

“Does it ever make you...envious to see Wyatt?”

The gravity of that question gave her an inkling of what might be causing Dylan to act out. It didn’t have to do with Aaron. Not completely.

“Why would it make me feel envious?” She could guess, but wanted to draw him out. He rarely put a voice to his fears and concerns; instead, he expressed them in some physical act, by making love to her, going to the gym he and his brothers had set up in their barn or—tonight, anyway—punching a hole in the wall.

“We’ve been married for a while now and...no baby.” He studied her. “Despite how badly you want one.”

He felt he had to provide something she wanted that much. He wasn’t used to being unable to give her what would make her happiest. Since he was eighteen, he’d been taking care of the people in his life. He always took on added responsibility; it was just who he was.

“I do want a baby,” she admitted. “I want your baby. But if we can’t have one, we can’t. Nothing could ever make me regret marrying you.”

“What if it’s me—my fault? You wouldn’t resent it someday?”

“Of course not.”

“Because it’s got to be me,” he said. “You’ve never done anything physically damaging.”

“You think fighting might’ve hurt your...equipment?”

“If I had a dollar for every time I got kicked in the nuts...”

He’d started in MMA when his father, grief-stricken after losing his children’s mother, stabbed a man in a bar and went to prison. Dylan had had to do something to augment what he could earn from the family’s auto body shop, which wasn’t exactly a success back then. Without the money he made fighting, his younger brothers would’ve been split up and placed in foster care.

“If that’s the way it is...we’ll accept it,” she said.

“Accept less, you mean.”

“Accept reality.”

His troubled eyes met hers. “I should get checked out.”

She’d wanted him to see a doctor—until she’d gone to a doctor herself and learned that it wasn’t her. “No.”

He reared back. “Why not?”

“Because it doesn’t matter.” She laced her fingers through his. “We’ll keep trying. You like that part, anyway,” she teased, but he didn’t let her levity distract him. He didn’t even smile; he was too intent on the conversation.

“And if it doesn’t work?”

“We’ll adopt.”

“But thanks to your mother—or, rather, Anita— you’ve missed out on so much already. I want you to have your own baby. I want you to experience pregnancy and childbirth and see yourself in the child you’re raising. And I want your real mother, now that you’ve found each other, to see her family grow.”

“We don’t always get what we want,” she told him.

“That’s just it. You’ve had to settle for most of your life. I can’t bear the thought that you might have to settle now because of me.”

“Dylan, I can love an adopted child just as much. Anyway, even if we never get a baby, I’d give up anything for you.”

He stared at her as if trying to decide whether she meant it. Then he kissed her deeply, tenderly, and led her into the bedroom, where he made love to her as though everything was fine and they’d get beyond this. But she could tell when she started to doze on his chest afterward that he was wide-awake and staring at the ceiling.

3

Presley couldn’t sleep. And she knew why. But she refused to obsess over running into Aaron at the bookstore. She also refused to toss and turn all night.

Kicking off the covers, she got up, threw on a pair of holey jeans and a sweatshirt and lifted her baby from his crib. Wyatt stirred but didn’t wake when she put him in his stroller. She almost hoped he would wake up—otherwise, he’d be ready to play when she needed rest. A single mother had to sleep when her baby did or go without.

But he didn’t make a peep as she hurried down the street to her studio. There was so much work that needed to be done. She figured she might as well get started, take advantage of this time.

Once she let herself in and stowed Wyatt in what she planned to use as her massage room, where it was dark and quiet, she walked through the place, studying it with a skeptical eye. How could she make the studio more appealing on such a limited budget?

The little she’d had in savings had dwindled fast, and she was concerned that she wouldn’t be able to pay her rent. If she didn’t get enough appointments, she’d have no hope....

“What-ifs” churned like acid in her stomach, but over the course of her life she’d been through much worse than financial uncertainty. She could remember as a girl rummaging through Dumpsters, hoping to find a cast-off burrito or hamburger that might be edible. Her mother had taken off whenever it suited her, leaving Presley and Cheyenne on their own, often for days, without heat or even food if they were in the car.